A Guide to Ota City Industries Industrial Promotion Section, Industrial Economic Department, Ota City Ota City Industrial Promotion Organization Starting Off Ota City is city of small and medium-sized companies in which 82% of companies have nine or fewer employees. The engineering and metalworking industry accounts for over 80% of the factories within Ota City limits. Ota City is an accumulation of a wide variety of technology, and it facilitates a network between industries and brings into reality multiple precision processing techniques and speed for dealing with tightening deadlines. It is the backbone of Japanese industry and the foundation for cutting-edge technological development. The global economic crisis that started in the United States with the Lehman Brothers’ collapse in September 2008 has significantly affected every country’s economy, and Japan faces a situation so serious that the government has declared a deflationary economy. The stagnation of exporting, the worsening of the employment situation, the decrease in capital investment and listless consumer spending caused by yen appreciation have all affected the business environment surrounding enterprises, and the future remains unclear. Ota City itself is facing many problems to overcome, including dealing with the improvement of fundamental technology across Asia and the loss of clients that accompanies it, the problem of developing a workforce to replace the current regime, and the deteriorating operating environment due to the dwindling number of factories and to the mixing of residences and industry. Ota City is working out various specific formulas in order to provide support for businesses in the city to receive more orders and retain business overseas, to secure and educate personnel, to develop new products and technology, to protect intellectual property against infringement, to promote business and establishment of facilities that foster relationships between industry and academia and forge new relationships between businesses, to assist in maintaining factory sites and operating environments in the city, and to head off troubles from the mixed residential and industrial environment through development guidelines. In addition to reviving the area network, Ota City is also building associations with other industrial areas in Japan and working relationships with foreign organizations. Businesses themselves are also trying to leap into a new era by drawing upon their unique and advanced technical and developmental powers to pursue the cutting edge of technology, creating original products and aggressively pushing into the international market. We hope that this guidebook helps citizens of Ota City, Japanese people and people of the world better understand Ota City Industry in an interesting and informative way. Industrial Promotion Section, Industrial Economic Department, Ota City Ota City Industrial Promotion Organization Ota City Industrial Guide Table of Contents 1.Characteristics of Ota City Geography and Industry … 1 3.Current Issues … 9 Southernmost Tokyo Ward Rising Above the Hollowing of Industry Population Breaking Away from Dependence on Subcontracting Ota City: Transportation Hub Issues Following the Global Economic Crisis Land Use and Industrial Locations Characteristics of Ota City Industry 4.Measures and Outlooks … 11 1 Maintaining an Industrial Environment 2.Ota City Industry and History … 5 Maintaining the industrial zone while building a town where Early Ota City Industry: Straw Handiwork residents and industry exist together in harmony Late Industrialization Plaza Industry Ota “PiO”: Forming an Industrial Hub The Great Kanto Earthquake and Expanding Industry 2 Reviving Industry The Beginning of Modern Industry Ota Mirai Plan: Ota City’s 10-year Basic Plan War and Ota City Industry -Ota City: Nurturing the Manufacturing Industry and Spreading it Worldwide- Ota City: Resilient Industrial Town Smoke Billows High: Escalated Economic Growth Pollution and Relocation of Industry Ota City: National Techno-polis Bursting of the Bubble Economy 1 1 Characteristics of Ota City Geography and Industry Southernmost Tokyo Ward Ota City is located at the southern extreme of The plateau area features relatively green the 23 wards of Tokyo. residential neighborhoods such as Den-en Chofu, It is the largest of the 23 wards with an area of Yukigaya, Kugahara, Senzoku and Magome. 59.46 square kilometers (as of January 1, 2009). The flatlands are a commercial/industrial zone Its geography is largely separated between the made up of Omori, Kamata, Ikegami and Haneda and plateau to the northwest and the plains to the packed with housing, shops and factories. southeast. Population Ota City was once the most populous of the 23 The daytime and nighttime populations of Ota City are wards with a population of over 750,000 people, but it nearly identical, indicating a balanced city that is a has since been surpassed by Setagaya Ward and space both for manufacturing activities and for living. Nerima Ward and currently has a population of There are 18,770 foreigners living in Ota City 674,527*. hailing mainly from East and Southeast Asian countries There are 344,808 households, and the such as China, South Korea, North Korea and the population (excluding foreigners) consists of 20.6% Philippines. seniors (age 65 and older), 68.1% working people (ages 15-64), and 11.3% children and infants (under age 15). * all figures as of January 1, 2010 Ota City: Transportation Hub Ota City is the southern doorstep of Tokyo and new terminal nicknamed “Big Bird” opened in 1993, operates as a critical junction of roads, rails and and a terminal building was added in 2004. Expansion airways. construction will end in October 2010 with plans to Running from north to south are National begin service on a fourth runway which would Highway 15 (Dai-ichi Keihin), National Highway 1 increase takeoff and landing capacity to 400,000 aircraft (Dai-ni Keihin) and National Highway 131, an per year, up from the current 300,000. There are plans industrial road that branches off from Highway 15 and to ramp up domestic airline routes as well as to provide connects Ota City to the waterfront industrial area of international service, including late-night and early- Kawasaki/Yokohama. Central Circular Routes 7 and 8 morning flights, for 90,000 aircraft per year. With these run east-west. National Highway 357 and the Shuto improvements, Haneda Airport will become a more Expressway (Route 1 and the Bayside Route) run along active focal point of international exchange of people, the coast of Tokyo Bay and connect Tokyo to goods, and information, and its role and capabilities as Kanagawa and Chiba Prefectures. Tokyo’s entranceway look to increase dramatically. The JR Tokaido Line, Keihin-Tohoku Line and Ota City stands out on a national scale as a Shinkansen run north-south through Ota City, and the superior industrial area due to its location as a Keihin Electric Express Railway parallels the JR lines. transportation hub. It is a place where anything and The Tokyu Tamagawa Line runs east-west from JR anybody can come from or go to any location within Kamata Station and goes to Shibuya and Meguro Japan within a matter of hours. In addition, Ota City’s Stations in the inner city through the Toyoko and industrial headquarters, Plaza Industry Ota (PiO), is Meguro Lines. The Tokyu Ikegami Line also runs from expected to play a role as the focal point of industrial west to east until it reaches Gotanda Station. exchange in Japan. Moreover, PiO is located in front of Haneda Airport serves as the aerial entrance to Keikyu Kamata Station, arguably the center of Japan’s Ota City. The airport has been expanded offshore, a airways and roadways. 1 Shuto Expressway Central Circular Route 7 Nakahara Kaido Tokyo Monorail Bayshore Route National Highway 131 Central Circular Route 8 National Highway 1 D Runway National Highway 15 (to be opened in October 2010) Land Use and Industrial Locations One characteristic of Ota City is its large to the engineering and metalworking industry in industrial zone, which occupies 16.86 square Omori-nishi, Omori-minami, Higashi-Kojiya, and kilometers, or 28.4%, of its total area* (Haneda Haneda in the area on the Tokyo Bay side of Ota City. Airport’s area of 12.78 km2 is excluded from the semi- There are relatively many factories related to industrial zone). The residential zone is 19.88 km2 precision industry in Yaguchi, Shimomaruko and the (33.4%), the commercial zone is 5.77 km2 (9.7%), and rest of the area along the Tamagawa River, but large- 4.17 km2 (7.0%) is unspecified. A large number of the scale public housing and apartment buildings are being factories are located on the shores of Tokyo Bay and developed and land use continues to shift from the Tamagawa River. industrial to residential in that area as well as in the In particular, many factories are located in the space between the Tokaido and Keihin Kyuko Lines industrial-only zones of Showajima, Keihinjima and that includes Rokugo, Kamata, Haginaka and Jonanshima, islands made of reclaimed land. Many Honhaneda. facilities that handle quick molding materials and There is an industrial zone in the Naka-Ikegami surfacing treatment such as casting, forging, iron area despite it being in the middle of Ota City. This works, painting and plating are located in these areas area saw an accumulation of factories because there is thanks to funding from the Japan Environment flat land along the Nomikawa River and because it Corporation (formerly the Environmental Disruption borders National Highway 1 and is a convenient Prevention Corporation) and movement of groups location for transportation. toward making use of the small and medium-sized And so, Ota City’s predominant characteristic is company advancement program. the accumulation of factories that is centered in the The inland area features many small-scale mixed residential and industrial areas and industrial- factories in the mixed industrial and residential areas, only zones on its reclaimed islands, but that stretches but some relatively large factories are located in the across a wide range within its borders.